[Druid] Why is +hit good for DPS? - Page 2

Valerian · 06/20/07, 3:00 PM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Indeed; however, missing on a yellow attack costs you time and energy. Worst case, we're talking 2 seconds because you missed down to below the cost of an ability immediately after a tick.

True, but even still suppose it costs you the 2 seconds. That would mean in my scenario you'd have a mangle crit and a miss cost you 60 energy whereas 2 mangle hits would still cost 80 energy, which still makes crit superior. If you didnt lost enough to require another tick before you can mangle its even better.

Simplifying in that manner actually hurts the valuation of +Hit as, without glances, the average hit is always going to be the same damage as the next hit; with glances, the average hit that lands is lower and adding more +Hit actually ~raises~ your average hit more than one would expect (you're going from, say 60% Hits / 25% glances / 15% Avoid to 68.6% Hit / 25% Glance / 7.4% Avoid).

As galzohar said with our without glancing it makes no difference. Take your scenario of: 60 hit /25 glance/ 15 avoid

This can become

68.6 hit/25 glance/7.4 avoid
or
51.4 hit/8.6 crit/25 glance/15 avoid

and it will be (neglecting PI) the same average damage. My point was a comparisson of Crit and Hit and their values with respect to one another not on how glancing/not glancing affects either (since it affects them both the same).

Seriously, play around with the spreadsheet and see what happens; if it says "Crit is better than Hit at 0% Hit" then it's probably correct unless I screwed up how I model one or the other. Admittedly, hit is more valuable than the sheet models due to the fact that a yellow miss results in a CP/Energy loss (not to mention I never modeled a miss chance into rip), but it's fairly on target and should give you a decent idea of what is better/worse. Just remember to trust the values for the custom entries more than the other ones as they actually model stuff like Primal Fury properly (everything includes Pred. Instincts).

I wasnt simply pulling numbers out of nowhere. The order of stat values I gave
(Agi>Str>AP>Crit rating>Haste rating>hit rating>FCS) is the order (assuming equivalent item budget) that I get from both Emmerald's and Lolaan's spreadsheets which are both complete models of standard feral attack patterns. Even Tangedyn's program back in the day showed the hit was significantly inferior to crit considering equal values (ie 1% of each).

Feorthas · 06/20/07, 3:10 PM

Yeah, I just checked my numbers and, as you expected, I was wrong and my sheet says so ^^;; (holy crap, its results actually match someone else's, making it a somewhat valid tool. Awesome!)

Problem: I wasn't looking at the big picture, just like I was accusing everyone else of not doing. The benefit that you gain from +Hit is superior to +Crit, but not by much (0.25 AP) with 0 hit/skill at 2400 AP / 35% Crit. In fact, it appears to report as superior all the time, but barely (same 0.25 AP better).

Agi and Strength always report as a better option; ~1 AP for Agi and 0.6 AP for Str (again, maintaining the ratio with hit increases).

What I missed was that rogue items, which generally have +Hit on them, also usually stack agility, which is the most valuable stat for a cat past 2200 ap or so. Thus, these items quite often end up ahead of the feral equivalent items simply because they have more of a desired stat (Agi) and non-trivial amounts of stats that, while they aren't amazing, aren't bad.

(Current) Conclusion: Str/Agi are better than +Hit, +Crit is roughly the same (past 30%), and gear that stacks Agi usually wins 'best for the slot' (past ~2200 AP). Skill appears to be worth 3 AP though (1.3 better than hit!) so it may be completely and utterly sane to stack +Skill for boss encounters. Either that or it's reporting incorrectly :P (good chance).

The Grog · 06/20/07, 3:36 PM

Agi gear winning best for the slot is only because there usually isn't any competition. Run a search for leather with str for ilvl 138+.

I prefer hit, personally, due to the benefit of easy management of mangle cycles. Having to rip at 3 or 4 cp because my mangle just timed out sucks.

Feorthas · 06/20/07, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by The Grog

Agi gear winning best for the slot is only because there usually isn't any competition. Run a search for leather with str for ilvl 138+.

All things considered, that really isn't a bad thing; as long as you can keep your AP/Crit over the threshold where Agility becomes better than Strength, you should be in good shape

.

Admittedly, it would be extremely nice to have some more obviously feral items; however, I can live with having most of my non-set slots be rogue gear.

Tyvi · 06/20/07, 5:42 PM

Unless it got changed, Hit also increases your effective crit rate because crits are calculated for ALL of your swings regardless if they get dodged/parried/hit or miss.

If needed I can try and dig up a(n old) post that had a Blue explain this.

If you consider this, how much better does it make Hit?

EDIT: Might as well link the Blue before someone questions my source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....14551513&sid=1

Athinira · 06/20/07, 8:17 PM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Lets say you have no +Hit and miss exactly 8.64% of the time--8.6 for the sake of this argument. Let's also say that you have the potential to do 1000 DPS, just to keep numbers nice and round. Due to misses, you are reducing your damage output by 86 DPS, without considering the combo-point, energy, and global cooldown mechanics. 'Losing' a GCD to a miss, without considering the lost damage or energy, costs you output by wasting a second of time. Considering that warlocks are modeling this effect so exactly on their spreadsheets, finding that the lost GCDs involved in recasting CoA reduce their dps below what is possible with a CoD + Shadowbolts during the extra GCDs, this effect on Druid & Rogue DPS must also be nontrivial. So, you easily lose 10% of your potential damage output by ignoring +Hit.

That is not true. For a combat system like energy based on time, wasting Global Cooldowns means absolutely NOTHING. Wasted energy means something however.

Imagine that missed attacks didn't cost the 20% energy, and look at this cycle starting from 100 energy (energy ticks starting at 0.5 seconds into the cycle):

00:0 - Mangle, 60 Energy left, 1 CP
00:5 - Energy tick, 80 energy
01:0 - Shred crit, 38 energy, 3 CP
02:5 - Energy tick, 58 energy
03:0 - Shred, 16 energy left, 4 CP
04:5 - Energy tick, 36 energy
06:5 - Energy tick, 56 energy
07:0 - Shred, 34 energy, 5 CP
08:5 - Energy tick, 54 energy
10:5 - Energy tick, 74 energy
12:0 - Mangle Debuff wears off
12:5 - Energy tick, 94 energu
13:0 - Rip, 64 energy
14:0 - Repeat cycle from start with Mangle

Total amount of damage done: 1 shred crit, 2 shreds a mangle and a Rip
Total amount of misses: 0
Total amount of energy at completed cycle at 13:0: 64

Now take the same cycle, add 2 shred misses and see the result:

00:0 - Mangle, 60 Energy left, 1 CP
00:5 - Energy tick, 80 energy
01:0 - Shred Miss, still 80 energy
02:0 - Shred crit, 38 energy, 3 CP
02:5 - Energy tick, 58 energy
03:0 - Shred, 16 energy left, 4 CP
04:5 - Energy tick, 36 energy
06:5 - Energy tick, 56 energy
07:0 - Shred miss
08:0 - Shred, 34 energy
08:5 - Energy tick, 54 energy
10:5 - Energy tick, 74 energy
12:0 - Mangle Debuff wears off
12:5 - Energy tick, 94 energu
13:0 - Rip, 64 energy
14:0 - Repeat cycle from start with Mangle

Total amount of damage done: 1 shred crit, 2 shreds a mangle and a Rip
Total amount of misses: 2
Total amount of energy at completed cycle at 13:0: 64

Now this is of course with the assumption that misses doesn't cost any energy. However, as we can clearly see, misses mean NOTHING to Global cooldown cycle for the energy system besides lost energy. If we miss an attack we can just cast it again next second. For a cooldown based system like warrior (MS/BT cooldown 6 seconds, WW cooldown 10 seconds) and for casters time means something, it doesn't for the energy based system besides lost energy. The energy system isn't based on time.

Valerian · 06/20/07, 8:51 PM

Originally Posted by Liar

Unless it got changed, Hit also increases your effective crit rate because crits are calculated for ALL of your swings regardless if they get dodged/parried/hit or miss.

If needed I can try and dig up a(n old) post that had a Blue explain this.

If you consider this, how much better does it make Hit?

EDIT: Might as well link the Blue before someone questions my source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....14551513&sid=1

How would hit increase your crit rate?

25% crit (for example) means 25% of my swings will crit. If I have 0 hit or 8% hit it still means 25% of my swings will crit. Hit just reduces your miss chance (which is what is shown in that link you posted)

thejdawg · 06/20/07, 9:22 PM

An attack has to hit before it can crit.

Lavode · 06/21/07, 12:35 AM

I've gone a fair bit out of my way to hitcap my cat gear, with 44 feral skill (shapeshifter/EW) and 108 hit rating. (havent missed yet with this. I did miss with 44/104. so this would be proof that feral combat skill is worth 0.14 hit, or close, against skull mobs.. except I only got 108 hit this past weekend. Data set too small yet )
I mainly emphasised hit to get a clean rip->mangle->shred cycle, and to make my cat gear pull double duty as "must hold aggro at all costs" gear.
proper cycle is far more important for damage than the relative value of hi/crit, because it affects the percentage of your energy income that gets spent on mangle buffed shred / rips as opposed to being spent on mangles.

Lavode · 06/21/07, 12:39 AM

I've gone a fair bit out of my way to hitcap my cat gear, with 44 feral skill (shapeshifter/EW) and 108 hit rating. (havent missed yet with this. I did miss with 44/104. so this would be proof that feral combat skill is worth 0.14 hit, or close, against skull mobs.. except I only got 108 hit this past weekend. Data set too small yet )
I mainly emphasised hit to get a clean rip->mangle->shred cycle, and to make my cat gear pull double duty as "must hold aggro at all costs" gear.
proper cycle is far more important for damage than the relative value of hi/crit, because it affects the percentage of your energy income that gets spent on mangle buffed shred / rips as opposed to being spent on mangles. and since hit can in no way be actually bad value for your item budget (its so damm cheap)..

Lavode · 06/21/07, 12:42 AM

apologies for double post. Dunno what happened, was trying to nuke the horrifically outdated sig via editing the post.

tunah · 06/21/07, 1:11 AM

Something I forgot to mention: I'm assuming a single-roll combat table. If yellow attacks are on a double roll, this makes +hit a bit better, I'll model it but I don't think it's huge. If white attacks are on a double roll I'll be very surprised.

Originally Posted by Feorthas

It's not that +Hit by itself is such an amazing stat, it's that it makes all of your other ones better.

I'm afraid this doesn't make any sense, it either increases your DPS by a useful amount, in the context of your current stats, or it doesn't.

Lets say you have no +Hit and miss exactly 8.64% of the time--8.6 for the sake of this argument. Let's also say that you have the potential to do 1000 DPS, just to keep numbers nice and round. Due to misses, you are reducing your damage output by 86 DPS, without considering the combo-point, energy, and global cooldown mechanics.

That doesn't follow at all. Suppose for argument's sake you do 1000 'potential' white damage (every thing connects) over a period of time, have a 35% crit rate, and don't glance (level 70 mob). 46% of your white damage is coming from hits, and 64% from crits. The attacks you miss by not having any +hit are hits, not crits, so you're losing 8.6%/65% = 13.2% of your *hit* damage, i.e. 13.2% * 46% = 6.1% of your total damage.

And this doesn't apply at all to yellow attacks unless you assume that you don't have any means/time to convert the 82% of energy you get back into DPS.

'Losing' a GCD to a miss, without considering the lost damage or energy, costs you output by wasting a second of time. Warlocks...

Time is not a scarce resource in most situations for cats. If wewere comparable to warlocks, you'd be running dotimer to refresh feral faerie fire at the very last second, like moonkins do.

Furthermore, as Athinira pointed out, missing results in less procs.

I do in fact model this.

Simply put, this means you get less Omen of Clarity procs, discounting the ability to proc anything else ...

I'm not sure what all the math is about. +1% to hit is +1% of swings that are eligible for an OOC proc. As mentioned, it's a small increase to the power of +hit.

This isn't even covering lost combo points / energy due to misses

Yes it is, you're overestimating lost energy due to misses by a factor of 5. Lost combo points are a small effect because the misses cost you 18% of energy. And yes I model this

nor am I even considering dodge at this point

Dodge doesn't have anything to do with +hit other than modifying your base hit-rate- i.e. the point at which you take your derivative.

however, a raw 10% reduction in potential DPS, not including procs, and a 36% reduction in expected OOC procs is a pretty hefty penalty in my book.

10%? 36%? what?

Originally Posted by Valerian

That said, item budget wise Hit is definately not the best stat available at least from a lot of spreadsheets I've seen. Since hit rating, crit rating (and any other combat ratings), Str and Agi all cost the same in an item budget, the order (once you've reached high enough AP) would be:

Agi>Str>AP>Crit Rating>Haste Rating>Hit rating>FCS

That's the conclusion I'm coming to (although FCS seems to be a lot better than that for the first 20 rating). My question then is, if hit is worse than pretty much any other DPS stat, then why does everyone seem concerned with what the hit cap is, when optimal gear shouldn't be anywhere near it?

Originally Posted by dukes

The other effect of +hit is that it means you can manage energy cycles much better. If you can always make sure you mangle with 81+ energy (or rip->mangle with 70+) then you can get the most effect out of it. It you miss this attack even once, it can cause a missed partial/full energy tick, which is a lot of DPS.

Definitely, +hit makes your cycles much more predictable and therefore almost always better. A simplified, resilient cycle helps with the modeling though. The cycle I'm using for calculation at the moment has things like 'shred to 5CP', and the amount of energy~time taken for this (accounting for misses) is used to calculate the proportion of shreds mangled. In practice if you missed four shreds in a row you'd probably mangle again at some point before rip. Of course the resulting numbers only approximate those for a different cycle, and there's some unlikely corner cases that break the model.

Pretty sure anyone who makes a spreadsheet ends up waking up in the middle of the night thinking 'what if I wait for 52 energy so I can mangle rip but mangle misses' or 'what if the rogue's 1.3 speed green offhand rolls low and glances, winding up 100 below the mob's block - can glances even block?!', their psychiatrist tells them to make a monte carlo simulator,and they're never heard from again.

Originally Posted by galzohar

While what you said about hit having low effect on specials is totally true, remember the rating cost of 1 hit, bumping it back up to a far less than useless stat. Remember that while 1% crit is clearly more DPS than 1% hit for the reasons stated in the first post, it also costs significantly more rating.

If it costs 29% less and does 50% less, then it's just worse.

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Simplifying in that manner actually hurts the valuation of +Hit as, without glances, the average hit is always going to be the same damage as the next hit.

This is very true. However I can't find any current theory of glancing blows that could put 1% to hit as 1% or more of your white DPS.

Originally Posted by galzohar

Glances or no glances, the effect of 1% hit and 1% crit for white damage is EXACTLY the same. The ratings are different though.

Not true, +hit takes a 0 multiplier to a 1.0 multiplier, +crit takes a 1.0 multiplier to a 2.2 multiplier (predatory instincts), 2.27 if you use a relentless earthstorm meta. Hit has advantages for things that proc on hit (OOC), crit is better for things that proc on crit (Hourglass).
But yes, point-for-point hit is better than crit if only looking at white damage.

Skill appears to be worth 3 AP though (1.3 better than hit!) so it may be completely and utterly sane to stack +Skill for boss encounters. Either that or it's reporting incorrectly

What FCSR do you currently have? In my current gear set with Shapeshifter's signet equipped (20FCSR = 5FCS), FCSR is worth about 2.2AP against bosses. If I take off my signet, FCSR becomes worth 2.93, as the first 20 points are more valuable. (I'm looking at the positive derivative because I'm generally looking at upgrades not downgrades

All things considered, that really isn't a bad thing; as long as you can keep your AP/Crit over the threshold where Agility becomes better than Strength, you should be in good shape

Agi and str seem to be balanced somewhere in the mid-2k-ap gear range (depending on other stats), and change very slowly relative to each other, I'm happy to take them as interchangeable at my level of gear.

Originally Posted by Liar

Unless it got changed, Hit also increases your effective crit rate because crits are calculated for ALL of your swings regardless if they get dodged/parried/hit or miss.

Originally Posted by Valerian

How would hit increase your crit rate?

Originally Posted by thejdawg

An attack has to hit before it can crit.

Originally Posted by Liar

crits are calculated for ALL of your swings

tunah · 06/21/07, 1:25 AM

So I'm not all talk, here's my current (possibly broken) version

HTML (read only)
XLS
ODF

The current version gives 1 hit rating as 1.40AP for my gear, a substantial improvement (and i think, more accurate, thanks guys!). It's still the worst DPS stat though (I don't have haste modeled).

Roughly speaking, you type in the yellow fields.
Sheets depend on sheets on their left generally (exceptions: damage section of attack depends on cycle, pawn section of stat value depends on gems).
Calculating value for each step is hacky atm since TABLE() isn't supported - you enter a 1 in the STR column, it increases your STR by 10, you type the DPS into the box. To get AEP values you have to do this for base (no modifiers), AP, and the stats of interest.

Now I find what I lied about modelling.

Valerian · 06/21/07, 2:11 AM

Originally Posted by tunah

So I'm not all talk, here's my current (possibly broken) version

HTML (read only)
XLS
ODF

The current version gives 1 hit rating as 1.40AP for my gear, a substantial improvement (and i think, more accurate, thanks guys!). It's still the worst DPS stat though (I don't have haste modeled).

Roughly speaking, you type in the yellow fields.
Sheets depend on sheets on their left generally (exceptions: damage section of attack depends on cycle, pawn section of stat value depends on gems).
Calculating value for each step is hacky atm since TABLE() isn't supported - you enter a 1 in the STR column, it increases your STR by 10, you type the DPS into the box. To get AEP values you have to do this for base (no modifiers), AP, and the stats of interest.

Now I find what I lied about modelling.

These results are almost exactly the same as the results Emmerald's Spreadsheet gives except for FCS.

How exactly are you modelling FCS? I'd assume its the exact inverse of defense skill except for the part where it adds extra crit to mobs above your level. I was unclear on how exactly it does that (as are many from the posts I've read).

tunah · 06/21/07, 2:53 AM

These results are almost exactly the same as the results Emmerald's Spreadsheet gives

Reassuring

.
Now here's a silly question - where can I actually find the thing?!
All I can find is links to the static gear listing, but I've got no idea what the base set of gear for this is. (If you have 2400AP and 40% crit then your stat valuation for upgrades won't be the same as if you have 2900AP and 30% crit).

Originally Posted by Valerian

except for FCS. How exactly are you modelling FCS? I'd assume its the exact inverse of defense skill except for the part where it adds extra crit to mobs above your level. I was unclear on how exactly it does that (as are many from the posts I've read).

It gives weapon skill, which reduces miss chance (8% + 0.04 * (mob_def - wpn_skill)).
When mob def exceeds your weapon skill, it gives a bonus 0.1% hit per skill.
When mob def exceeds your weapon skill + 10, it gives an additional 0.1% hit per skill.
So on a boss, the first 5 skill give 0.2% + 0.04% hit each. The next 10 give 0.1% + 0.04%, and any others give 0.04%.
I need to find my reference for this when I get home.

FCS gives weapon skill, which increases crit chance (agi_crit + critrating_crit - 0.04*(mob_def - wpn_skill) + talents)
When mob def exceeds your weapon skill, it gives a bonus 0.1% crit per skill.
So on a boss, the first 15 skill give 0.1% + 0.04% crit and the rest give 0.04%. (This was broken in the spreadsheet, you'd get the 0.1% for all skill. Fixed!)
This was in the 1.13 patch notes.

So all this could be completely wrong. This seemed at the time I looked into it to be the most likely/consistent model, but I don't think anyone knows for sure =\